The moment the Thompson Reuters report was out, there was a huge discussion across the Media on the authenticity of the report. Different people had different reactions to the report. While a handful admitted, it to be true, most of them dismissed it as a publicity stunt to defame India and quoted it as a biased report. Agreed that the sample size was less, they had considered only lesser number of experts in the field, but still there India cannot top in Crime against Women. The National Commission for Women rejected the report. So a gentleman, who is a Men’s Right Activist (MRA), whom I used to follow, Tweeted “NCW is right in rejecting the report, India is unsafe for men and not women.”.
Crime against women is a sensitive issue, which either ways our politicians and media do not handle in sensitive manner. It pinches, when I hear people taking crime against women in an insensitive way. I lost my temper and in an impulse told him to dressup like a girl in public and just pass through a crowded place in a city without being groped. That evoked series of reaction, from cursing to criticizing me for being a woman. It was almost like, the moment they see a woman in front of them, if they are armed they can kill her. Some of those tweets were a real eye openers as they expressed about how low Indian Men still consider women to be.
A few tweets were obviously, describing women as gold diggers. Their hatred towards me was double, because I was not only a woman who asked them a question, but also a lawyer. Right from the law to the Existence of women everything was criticised. While I admit, the laws in India pertaining to safety for men are less and theses men had been victims of Domestic Violence or Fake Cases as they claim (Wherein just reading their tweets, I blessed their wives for they escaped such narrow minded demons). One thing, I simultaneously admit, that Men have more unity than we women, none of those men, reveled any of their personal details of what exactly went wrong even despite asking them repeatedly. I even shared my email id with them asking them for the statistics as a couple of them claimed to be running helpline and NGO’s but they were determined not to share it with me because probably I am a woman.
The most hilarious part was the swearing and the cursing. If you ever felt that till date only your K Serial writers wrote amazing script and out of the world dialogues, the curses that these men showered upon me, were amazing. They claim to be gentlemen but did not shy to curse me to the same fate as them.
The problem in India is gender sensitivity. The problem is we taught our girls to be strong but we failed how to teach our men to handle strong girls. It is the failure of this major gap that has caused this increased hatred amongst both the genders. It is true that Men’s issues need to be addressed but another person will understand their problem only if they address it with politeness. Forcefulness will only make others back out. The debate was mainly about the law and how women are misusing the law to put fake cases to extort money. After several tweets, I realised that the problem will not stop here, if this hatred continues, it will be an end to the family system.
Patriarchy has done equal damage to both men and women, today if a man asks for his rights, we consider them weak and cranky. Mental Health is an ignored aspect of our society and empathy is a skill that we have lost ages ago. So in order to maintain the harmony of gender equality, here are a few steps that we as a society and the government.
- Teach our sons,it is ok to cry. If your son has a problem talk to him. “Mard ko Dard nahi hota”. Is real crap, we need to nourish and cherish our boys also;
- Teach our daughters, that Men are not machines, they also have emotions, which are genuine, men do expect more from you, apart from sex;
- As a society, increase one to one communication, with technology, we have forgotten, what real interactions mean, keep a no cell phone rule and everyone as a family, share 10 mins of what happened during your day. When you come to know how a parent’s day was, they will not crib about the absence of their parents, if children express how their day was, then parents will know that they are a part of their children’s lives;
- Respect each other’s choices and give them equal space, if a woman wants to pursue her career support her, if a man wants to stay at home or have his own start up, help them;
- Our education system needs to change, skill sets need to be taught to children irrespective of their gender, Cooking and sports should be an option available to both the genders. Gender sensitivity is something that needs to be taught at home;
- For development of any nation, it is important that the family life of its citizens is more peaceful;
- Today’s generation has become more aggressive than the previous generation because of its FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), YOLO (You Live Only Once) attitude, both boys, girls, men and women do not want to loose the momentum and simple adjustments required in a marriage seem like a big hurdle to couples;
- Stop telling your daughter’s stories about how you were suppressed, this will only make her more aggressive, stop telling your son that a woman is meant to only take care of his needs and the needs of his house;
- Stop telling your daughters stories that every man is bad, tell her to check people by their qualitity and not gender, tell your son, that his duty does not end in providing only money, it extends beyond money